Quotes from William Gurnall

The evil day is not such a scareful thing to thee that art a Christian, as that thou shouldst start for it. Bring up thy heart close to it. Show thy soul what Christ hath done to take the sting out of it, what the sweet promises are that are given on purpose to overcome the fear of it, and what thy hopes are thou shalt get by it. These will satisfy and compose thy spirit; whereas the shunning the thoughts of it will but increase thy fear, and bring thee more into bondage to it.

The Christian's armour will rust except it be furbished and scoured with the oil of prayer.

may say to thee as Constantine did to Acetius the Novatian, 'Set then up thy ladder, and go to heaven by thyself, for never any went this way thither;' and dost thou think to be the only man that shall appear in heaven purchaser of his own happiness?

Election indeed is first in order of divine acting, God chooseth before we believe; yet

I do not say that to pray in secret amounts to an infallible character of sincerity—for hypocrisy may creep into our closet when the door is shut closest, as the frogs did into Pharaoh's bed-chamber.

These are a new sort of saints, which the world hath hardly been ac quainted with before these unhappy days of ours; they would be in heaven before their time, and leave no tears on their cheeks for Christ at death to wipe away.

To say we love one, and not pray for him, is a solecism.

Christ did not redeem and save poor souls by sitting in majesty on his heavenly throne, but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the tormenting hand of man's fury and God's just wrath.

But, as the father hath it, manducant in terris quod apud inferos digerunt—they devour on earth those morsels that will lie heavy on their stomachs in hell to be digesting to eternity.

Others wrestle with sin, but they do not hate it, and therefore they are favourable to it, and seek not the life of sin as their deadly enemy. These

The gate into Christ's school is low, and these cannot stoop. The Master himself is so humble and lowly, that he will not teach a proud scholar. Therefore first become a fool in thine own eye. A wiser man than thyself hath confessed as much: 'I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy,' Prov. 30:2, 3.

Dum mala pungunt, bona promissa un guunt—while calamities smite with oppression, the gracious promises anoint with their blessings.

Faith tells the soul what Christ hath done for it, and so comforts it. Hope revives the soul with news of what Christ will do. Both draw at one tap—Christ and his promise.

The Spirit is the only true interpreter of the word. Hence that known passage of Bernard: quo spiritu factæ sunt Scripturæ, eo spiritu legi desi derant, ipso etiam intelligendæ sunt—the Scriptures must be read, and can be understood, by that Spirit alone by whom they were made.

It is faith stills the storm which sin had raised—faith that changed his doleful note into joy and gladness.

O take heed of this: pride turns an ordinance into an idol. God accepts our fasts and prayers when used for humilia tion, but abhors them when we bring them for our justification.

To be a minister,' said Luther, 'is nothing else but to derive the world's wrath and fury upon himself.

He is the best student in divinity that studies most upon his knees[26]

A friend for adversity is as proper as fire is for a winter's day.

The manifestations of God's love are to fit us for our work.

Study may make one a great scholar in the Scriptures, but prayer makes a wise Christian, as it obtains sanctified knowledge, without which it is no perfect gift, but —a gift and no gift.

Zanchy tells of one in Geneva, who being desired to go hear Calvin, answered his friend, 'If Paul were to preach, I would leave Paul himself to hear Calvin[35].' And will pride in the gifts of another so far transport, even to the borders of blasphemy, what work will then pride make when the gifts are a man's own?

That prayer is a necessary duty to be performed by the Christian, and used with all other means in his spiritual warfare.

It hath been the constant practice of the saints in all their dangers and straits, whether from enemies within or without, from sin, devils, or men, to betake themselves tot he throne of grace, and draw a line of prayer about them; accounting this the only safe posture to stand in for their defence.